Political Notebook: Job offers, no takers

Dumanis, Filner talk about hiring Fletcher

It should come as no surprise that the four major candidates for San Diego mayor have made creating jobs a central focus of the race given the high unemployment rate in California. But who would have thought they would be so focused on offering jobs to each other?

Tony Manolatos, a communications strategist and ex-City Hall aide, wrote an April 7 post for the Republican-dominated sdrostra.com in which he described a conversation between two mayoral candidates — District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher.

“Nathan Fletcher would benefit the most from a Dumanis exit but I don’t see it happening,” he wrote. “Way back when there were no official candidates neither she nor Fletcher had any luck getting the other to bow out. I heard Dumanis offered Fletcher a deal back then. Serve as her chief of staff and she would step down after one term and support him for mayor.”

Fletcher confirmed Wednesdaythe offer had been made.

“I just thought it was silly,” he said. “I’ve been clear with everyone that I have a passion and desire to be mayor and get our city back on track. So no one was going to talk me out of running.”

Dumanis described the conversation, which she said took place in January or February of last year, as witty banter and said Friday it was never a real offer. “You know Nathan and I joked around back and forth with each other a long, long time ago,” she said. “He joked to me. I joked to him. No serious offers.”

Take this job, and …

Job offers can also be wielded as a campaign tactic as Rep. Bob Filner, the lone Democrat running for mayor, has done.

At forums and debates, Filner has repeatedly listened to Fletcher respond to questions and then said some variation of “Nathan, I like your answer so much I’m going to make you (fill-in-the-blank) in the Filner administration.”

About a dozen offers have been made so far, including speechwriter, commissioner of education and chief representative to the Filipino community. Each time Filner’s joke has elicited laughter from the audience.

It’s clear the offers are meant to belittle Fletcher, but Filner has used it so many times now that Fletcher has seized the opportunity to turn the tables on Filner. At the LGBT debate last month, Fletcher drew laughs with the following response: “Bob, thank you for the job offers. If you think I did such a great job maybe you should consider voting for me.”

Fletcher then added if he becomes mayor he would appoint Filner as a port commissioner because of his stated desire to expand San Diego’s maritime business.

Answer the question

When Fletcher isn’t busy fending off job offers, he spends most of his time going after the fourth major candidate for mayor — City Councilman Carl DeMaio. In the first attack ad of the race, Fletcher’s team created a YouTube video focused on DeMaio’s refusal to answer certain questions during the campaign.